Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Complacent or Competitive

My HR practice has changed dramatically over the last few years. In 2008 I thought I was hitting my stride. In a great job, felt like I knew my stuff, and was introducing strategies that were changing the culture of my organization. I was in the zone.

For a very short period of time.

Complacency KillsFor some reason I've been blessed, at least I would consider it a blessing, to be ultra-competitive. This tendency spills over to my work constantly. As the pressure began to mount on finding talent, very specific talent, I realized I was no longer competing at the level necessary to be successful.

Something had to change...and that something was me.

I was no longer pushing myself to learn new tools, or to try innovative recruitment strategies, or to embrace the "one brand" philosophy for the entire organization including recruitment advertising. (Sorry HR, you're not the advertising pros you think you are.)

New Territory

Not long after this somewhat humbling realization is when I began my social media journey. The signs were all around me that if I was going to be an effective human resources leader I needed to not only understand the tools, but I needed to use them. Are you with me? I had to use the tools myself.

Today my world is very different. My team now pushes me to deploy new tools as much as I push them. Our HR strategies are completely aligned with our Web and Marketing departments. But I'm still competitive as ever and am pushing myself to learn more.

How About YouWhat part of your career have you neglected? Have you convinced yourself that you're just too busy right now to try anything new? It's time to drop that excuse. There's so much happening and you're going to miss it if you keep chasing the same old routine.

2 comments:

Self-evaluation is always a challenge (who likes admitting she has any shortcomings?), but we all hit our complacent ruts in our careers. My goal for the new year is to set aside more scheduled time for professional development and the web skills I want to hone.